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Musicality and phonetic language aptitude

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Musicality and phonetic language aptitude Davide Nardo and Susanne Maria Reiterer

1.

Introduction

1.1. A question of definitions Several concepts are related to – and relevant for – the issue of musical talent. Musicality, musical ability, musical aptitude, musical intelligence and musical giftedness are just some examples. Unfortunately, it is very tricky to provide a single and simple definition of (musical) talent, even because such definition largely depends on both the theoretical and empirical context of a given author. However, most authors agree on two fundamental characteristics of talent: i) it is regarded as something special, or rather an exceptional capability in a given domain; ii) it is regarded as a potential, e.g. something capable of development (Jørgensen 2008). Musicality is rather a loosely used term with many meanings (Jaffurs 2004). The term musicality refers to a sensitivity to, a knowledge of, or a talent for music. In psychology of music the term was first used by Révész (1953) to denote the ability to enjoy music aesthetically. However, Reimer (2003) prefers the term musical intelligence rather than musicality, in order to highlight its cognitive content instead of its similarities with talent, skill, or ability. According to him, there are many ways to be musically intelligent (i.e. in composing, performing, improvising, listening, etc.), and different individuals may show different levels of achievement in some of these abilities, but hardly in all of them. However, his definition of musicality goes beyond performance to include also aspects of music listening, which leads to an aesthetic experience. As suggested by Jaffurs (2004), one way to define musicality in formal practice is to examine the standards for arts education, provided by the National Association for Music Education (MENC, 1994): i) singing, ii) performing on instruments, iii) improvising, iv) composing and arranging, v) reading and notating music, vi) understanding musical experience, vii) aesthetically evaluating, and viii) historical and cultural understanding. However, a survey with amateur musicians has shown that qualities like playing with expressiveness or feeling, timbre sensi-

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Davide Nardo and Susanne Maria Reiterer

tivity, repertoire readiness, imitating skills, and the ability to get along with other musicians were considered very important parts of an individual’s musicality (Green 2002). Thus, musicality is a multifacted concept, more than just a skill, partially innate and yet strengthened by a nurturing environment. On the other hand, talent can be defined as: i) a characteristic feature, aptitude, or disposition; ii) the natural endowments of a person; iii) a special, often creative or artistic aptitude; iv) general intelligence or mental power (ability). Aptitude can be characterized as: i) an inclination or tendency; ii) a natural ability (talent); iii) a capacity for learning; iv) a general suitability (aptness). A red thread draws a line throughout these concepts, conveying the meaning of something that is: i) somehow strongly connoted as innate (a gift, thus clearly separated from practice); ii) oriented towards something (a propensity or potential); iii) exceptional or extraordinary; and iv) closely related to a skill (ability, capacity). On these bases, we suggest a temporary definition of musical talent as a (predominantly) innate tendency to understand/appreciate, perform or create music outstandingly. 1.2. Major issues When one is concerned with the measurement of musical talent, a series of fundamental questions arise: i) is talent an exclusively and exquisitely innate phenomenon, or does nurture play any role?; ii) is talent normally distributed in the population, or rather an “all-or-none” phenomenon?; iii) is talent a unitary trait, or rather a multi-dimensional one?; iv) if yes, how many sub-components make it up?; v) is talent similar to, or different from intelligence? In the present section, we will briefly introduce such issues, in order to make the reader aware of the complexity of musical talent and its measurement. Although most authors agree that musicality is widely innate and hereditary, the “nature vs. nurture” controversy has been vivid also in this field, especially with respect to the amount of such innateness on the one hand, and the role contingent learning factors and the social environment play on the other hand, which should be neither neglected nor underestimated. Scientists devoted to talent measurement know how difficult it is to separate aptitude from achievement. This is another fundamental issue, particularly with respect to the music domain, where the ability (i.e. playing an instrument, solmizate, categorizing notes) can be so finely trained.

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In the next sections, we will see how the different authors conceive musicality. However, we suggest that a helpful distinction could be drawn between talent (or aptitude) and musicality (or ability), where the former refers more to the innate component, and the latter to the resulting skill developed in interaction with the environment (through training, practice, etc.). This way, when we talk of talent, we are referring to an innate tendency to perform well in a given domain, the degree of which varies among different individuals, and which is rather independent of experience. Conversely, we could refer to an ability as the result of practice or learning, although it is highly probable that given the same amount of training, a talented person will outperform a non-talented one. Is talent normally distributed in the population, or is it rather an “allor-none” phenomenon? Although the popular belief mainly considers it in the second way (on the basis of which some individuals would be gifted, whilst others would not), the scientific literature reveals that music aptitude, like most of all human characteristics, is normally distributed in the population (Jørgensen 2008; Gordon 1989a). This implies that everybody has a certain degree of potential to achieve in music, with relatively fewer very high- and low-talented persons, and the majority with an average aptitude. The concept of musicality is probably closer to the notion of skill, rather than to the traditional way psychologists see intelligence, unless we consider approaches like that of Howard Gardner (1983), who proposed the existence of several independent intelligences (see chapter by G. Rota). In section 3, we will review a series of experimental studies demonstrating a large independence between musicality and intelligence, when this latter is defined and measured as a general factor. Such evidence clearly demonstrates that musical aptitude cannot be considered an aspect (or a by-product) of intelligence, but rather an independent mental characteristic. According to Gordon (1989a), there are two general points of view over music aptitude. The Gestaltists hold that music aptitude is a unitary trait of which overall intelligence is a substantial part. Conversely, the Atomists contend that music aptitude is multidimensional, consisting of various parts, none of which is significantly related to overall intelligence. The experimental evidence collected in almost one century of research on musicality testing converge at showing that there are different identifiable sub-components within musical talent, and that such sub-components are rather independent of intelligence, defined as a unitary trait.

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1.3. What is measured In section 1.1 we have provided some definitions of the various concepts related to musicality. Yet the question “what is measured?” (that is, what are the sub-components of musicality, or the fundamental abilities measured) can be risen. Nowadays there is good agreement on the importance of perception and cognition of musical patterns and structures. According to Shuter-Dyson (1999), there are five groups of fundamental abilities: tonal, rhythmic, kinesthetic, aesthetic and creative abilities, each of which could be subdivided into other sub-components, all of which are subject to improve with age and exposure (acculturation). Tonal abilities comprise: i) pitch perception (i.e. the ability to discriminate different pitches); ii) sense of tonality (tonal reference, i.e. the development of a pitch system in which tone relations are specifically defined on the basis of their inferred relation to the tonic); and iii) harmony-polyphony (i.e. the ability to detect incorrectness or violations in chord sequences). Rhythmic abilities1 are made up of different sub-components which correspond to different aspects of rhythm, like meter abstraction, perception of rhythmic structures, rhythmic anticipation (expectancy), practorhythmic factor (coordination of limbs in rhythmic movements), and tempo-tapping. Moreover, within rhythmic abilities a distinction between a figural and a metric perception has been suggested (Bamberger 1982), in which the former refers to the grouping of sounds into meaningful chunks, and the latter is focused on the steady pulse underlying the surface events of melody. Kinesthetic abilities – the motor components – play a pivotal role in music performance like playing an instrument or singing. It has been observed that kinesthetic factors influence the ability to improvise (McPherson 1993/1994), and the bodily movements made by the performers contribute to expressivity of the performer (Davidson 1993). However, kinesthetic abilities also play a role in auditory perception. For instance, Mainwaring (1933) reported that kinesthetic cues were used by his subjects in order to recall tunes. On the other hand, Baily (1985) highlighted the need to study the way musical patterns may be represented cognitively as patterns of movements rather than as patterns of sound.

1. Rhythmic abilities are peculiar because on the one hand it has been shown that rhythm is processed relatively independently from pitch (Peretz & Coltheart 2003), whereas on the other hand there is evidence of reciprocal interactions between rhythm, melody and tonality (Gordon 1965; Sloboda 1985).

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Aesthetic abilities are fundamentally related to expression, appreciation and emotion. An interesting research by Clarke (1993) with pianists required to imitate performances showed that the more the relationship between structure and expression was disrupted, the more inaccurate and unstable was the attempt at imitating. Gabrielsson (1982) has shown that a balanced combination of the structural, motional and emotional aspects adapted to the needs of a given individual and the actual musical content may be what is required for artistic performance. Swanick (1973) claimed that much cognitive activity is involved in aesthetic response to music, and that the intensity and quality of any emotional experience depends on this activity. Moreover, the ability to make predictions (expectations) as to what may follow is central to the process of understanding music, so that in general deviations arouse excitement. Creative abilities – like aesthetic abilities – are rather a fuzzy concept. What is then creativity? Supposedly, a cognitive process resulting in the production of something which is both original and highly valuable (Sternberg 1996). Webster (1988) has claimed that a “collection of musical aptitudes” is necessary for a creative work in music: i) convergent skills (i.e. the above-mentioned abilities to recognize rhythmic and tonal patterns, musical syntax, etc.); ii) so-called divergent skills (i.e. musical extensiveness, flexibility, and originality); and iii) other abilities, like conceptual understanding, craftsmanship and aesthetic sensitivity. Musicality tests which attempt to measure musical creativity (Vaughan 1977; Webster 1983; Wang 1985) mainly exploit improvisation. Although musical creativity factors seem to be unrelated to other sub-components of musical aptitude (Swanner 1985), they show a certain degree of association with personality traits of imagination, curiosity and anxiety. Some studies (Kratus 1989, 1991) have shown a negative correlation between musical aptitude and the need to explore the musical pieces (a sub-component of the composition activity). Correlations between general intelligence scores and musical ability tests are mostly found to be positive, but low (generally about 0.30; see Shuter-Dyson & Gabriel 1981). In his work on cognitive abilities, Carroll (1993) reanalyzed hundreds of test data-sets and proposed a model which specifies what kinds of individual differences in cognitive abilities exist, and how they are related to one another. According to this model, there is a large number of distinct individual differences in cognitive ability, and the relationships among them can be derived by classifying them into three different strata: i) stratum I, specific abilities (among which the specific factors in

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perceiving music and musical sounds); ii) stratum II, broad abilities (i.e. fluid and crystallized intelligence, general memory and learning, retrieval ability, cognitive speediness, etc.); iii) stratum III, general intellectual ability similar to Spearman’s “g” factor (1927). By analyzing the relevant literature, Carroll identifies 31 factors of musical talent, which he further divides into four subgroups: i) general sound discrimination factors, comprising basic abilities to discriminate tones or patterns of tones with respect to their fundamental attributes of pitch, timbre, intensity, duration, and rhythm; ii) sound-frequency discrimination factors, similar to those of the previous group, but focused on discriminations of the frequency attributes of tones (i.e. detecting a changed note in a melody, detecting the number of notes in a chord, detecting a changed note in a chord, etc.); iii) sound intensity and duration discrimination factors, focusing on discriminations with respect to intensity (loudness), duration and rhythm (amplitude and temporal attributes of sounds and sequential patterns of sound), which depend on sensitivity to temporal and rhythmic aspects of tonal passages; iv) musical sensitivity and judgment factors, comprising judgments of the “musicality” of short musical passages (which sounds best?) based on phrasing, loudness, rhythm and harmony, in general independent of factors assessing simple auditory discriminations. This factor can be further divided into a tonal imagery subfactor, emphasizing melodic and harmonic aspects of music, and a musical expression subfactor, stressing those aspects arising from variations in phrasing, loudness and tempo. Nearly all measures of musical aptitude depend to a great extent on tests of very elementary discriminations among tonal materials, with only little musical contexts. According to Carroll (1993), this could be due to the desire to minimize the effects of musical training (so that a test can be used to predict success in such training), but also to a failure to recognize the possibilities of preparing a test including an appropriate musical context. Expert musicians and music educators, so Carroll, tend to discredit simple tests of auditory discriminations (like Seashore’s) as possible tests of musical aptitude because they contain little or no musical meaning. However, it is difficult to develop tests with a desirable level of musical meaning that do not at the same time become tests influenced by musical training and experience.

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How to measure musicality

Each author tends to have his own view of what exactly musical aptitude is, and what subcomponents it is made of. As a consequence, each musicality test has been created from a different perspective, often criticizing the works of predecessors and attempting to combine, complete or improve them. This fact has also generated a series of theoretical proposals and empirical approaches that do not always coincide. Several psychometric tests of musical talent and ability have been created in the last century, some approximate to tests used by musicians, others analyze music into its most elementary basic constituents. We cannot survey them all here (for a review, see Shuter-Dyson & Gabriel 1981), but we will examine the most popular ones, in order to highlight which issues emerge when attempting to measure musical aptitude, and what such issues tell us about the nature and the characteristics of musical talent. We will consider three major tests: Seashore’s test, especially for historical reasons; Wing’s test, for its cognitive implications; and Gordon’s tests, for its flexibility and popularity. 2.1. Seashore’s measures of musical talents Seashore’s Measures of Musical Talents is the oldest standardized music test available, first published in 1919, and subsequently revised in 1939. The characteristic of this test is to focus on the very basic sensory capacities with a strong psychophysical approach, by presenting the subjects a series of pairs of tones and requiring to discriminate a certain physical characteristic between them. The revised version of the test (1939) is made up of six subtests, each assessing a specific domain of musical aptitude: i) pitch; ii) loudness; iii) rhythm; iv) time; v) timbre; and vi) tonal memory. In the first five subtests, the subject is required to compare two items (notes or rhythmic patterns) and say whether they differ (and sometimes in which direction, i.e. higher/lower, stronger/weaker, longer/shorter). In the last subtest, the subject has to listen to a series of pairs of consecutive tones forming no melody, and to identify within each pair which tone in the second sequence differs in pitch from its corresponding tone in the first one. In each subtest only one factor is varied at a time, while others are kept constant and as simple as possible. This way, the test should be equally feasible for young and old, musicians and non-musicians, because it measures immediate sensory acts that do not improve with practice.

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According to Seashore (1919), musical talent is a gift of nature, as it can be inherited but not acquired, and the measurement of musical ability chiefly regards inborn psychophysical and mental capacities as distinguished from skills acquired by training. In his view, musical talent is not unitary, rather there would be a hierarchy of related talents which work together, and such hierarchy would present different organizations in different individuals. Therefore, the main aim of the assessment of musical talent is to characterize the dominant traits, as well as determining both qualitatively and quantitatively the composition of each hierarchy of traits. Hence, the test permits a quantitative measure of the magnitude of each trait, and a description of the distribution of individual differences for each one as well. A collection of a large number of cases allows in turn the creation of a curve of distribution which can be referred to as a norm for the interpretation of individual records (expressed in percentile ranks). Seashore proposes a classification of the essential traits of musical talent considering on the one hand the characteristics of sound which constitute music, and on the other hand the mental skills which are needed for the appreciation of musical sounds. As regards the characteristics of sound, he identifies three elements relevant for testing: pitch, time and intensity. Pitch is defined as the quality or the essence of sound, a basic element underlying more complex music phenomena such as timbre, consonance and harmony. On the contrary, rhythm is a combination of more fundamental elements (i.e. time and intensity). Thus, according to the author, this classification permits the arrangement of musical talents into the ability to appreciate and the ability to express respectively pitch, time and intensity. As regards the mental skills, Seashore divides the capacity for the appreciation and expression of music into four fundamental abilities: i) sensory (i.e. hearing music); ii) motor (i.e. expressing music); iii) associational (i.e. understanding music); and iv) affective (i.e. feeling music and expressing feelings in music). He claims that, by combining these two classifications – the elements of musical sounds and the capacities of human individuals – the principal groups of musical talent would be obtained. Seashore makes a clear distinction between what he calls cognitive and physiological thresholds. The cognitive threshold is a limit due to cognitive difficulties such as ignorance, misunderstanding, inattention, lack of application, confusion, disturbances, misleading thought, etc. Conversely, the physiological threshold is a limit determined by the character

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of the physical structure of the inner ear. The author states that the cognitive threshold is no measure at all, but rather an indication of a lack of control over other conditions. Instead, a correct measurement should give the physiological threshold (or at least a proximate physiological threshold), given that the former is scarcely attainable. Anyway, according to him we cannot get a measure below the physiological threshold, and any error is due to the cognitive threshold. He also warns against what he calls the illusions, that is the influence of conscious or unconscious anticipation (expectation) on the judgmental process (i.e. illusion of pitch, intensity, timbre, etc.). According to Seashore, absolute pitch2 is just an illusion cultivated by many musicians. In fact, one could identify a note sounded in isolation not by absolute pitch, but by memory of conditions of tuning, by difference in timbre, or guess. However, the author believes that the sensitiveness of the ear to pitch difference (as well as to other elements of sound) cannot be improved appreciably by practice. Practice can only improve the cognitive threshold by clearing up difficulties (such as information, observations, development of interest, isolation of the problems, application to the task, etc.) which could hinder an actual measure of discrimination. Thus, training in discrimination is not like the acquisition of a skill, because only the meaning of pitch can be refined through training. Finally, Seashore asserts that the actual psychophysical capacity for pitch discrimination (and other elements of sound) does not improve with age and does not vary with sex. In fact, the records of younger children are just slightly inferior to those of the older, and this could be accounted for by the presence of conditions for observation which are overcome as experience grows with age. Furthermore, although scores of girls are normally superior to those of boys, this could be better explained by the relative lack of interest in music typically shown by preadolescent boys. The historical importance and the scientific influence of Seashore’s test should not be underestimated, because it was a pioneering work and the first to be fully standardized. Nevertheless, its atomistic approach has been heavily criticized, and its weakness in predicting musical ability has been demonstrated, being even scarcely more efficient than general intelligence in predicting musical achievement (for a review see Wing 1970). 2. Absolute pitch (or perfect pitch) is the ability found in a minority of listeners to name an isolated musical tone presented without an objective reference tone or, conversely, to produce a tone identified by name only.

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Let us briefly follow the major critiques Wing raises against Seashore’s approach. Of course, by choosing pitch, intensity, rhythm, time, timbre and memory, Seashore has selected the most commonly accepted basic qualities of musical capacity. However, the elementary way he had tested them, has moved him from “music” (made up of patterns and relationships of tones) to mere sensory perception. To the musician, the pitch subtest is too simple, and measures too fine a degree of discrimination. The time and intensity subtests are probably the least satisfactory of the battery, because of their “distance” from actual music. In fact, they do not test for time and intensity as they are used in music. In an actual music performance, the correct length of a note is not based on a comparison with the note just played, but on the dynamic rhythmic progression of the melody. In the same way, intensity does not merely consist in noticing that one note is louder than another, but in getting an intensity change suited to the melodic line and the whole character of the piece. Memory and rhythm are probably the best of the Seashore’s subtests, because of their “closeness” to actual music. Nonetheless, it is questionable whether a test for memory on nonsense material is fully valid for musical (and therefore “meaningful”) material. Moreover, there is the possibility that a subject could score low in those subtests which do not gain his “attention”, because they are far away from actual music. 2.2. Wing’s standardised tests of musical intelligence The Wing’s test has been devised and revised by the author between the late 1930s and 1970. In his work, the author intended to reconcile the pragmatic experience of musicians with the experimental experience of psychologists by creating a test of music aptitude independent from musical training, and capable of pointing out: i) the mental processes implicated in music fruition; ii) the distribution of musical aptitude in the population; iii) its development with age and learning; and iv) the influence of the environment and culture. In conceiving such measurement, the opposition between a nativist and an empiricist approach has been mediated by cognitivism, according to which music results from mental processes of organization and transformation of the physical stimuli. In order to find these processes, the author has devised a series of standardized subtests which employ structured musical material instead of elements of music (as in Seashore’s test).

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By surveying the psychological literature of his time, Wing identifies a series of weaknesses in the previous tests of music aptitude (including Seashor’s): i) ignoring qualities a musician regards as desirable (i.e. appreciation), or emphasizing qualities a musician regards as of little importance (e.g. absolute pitch); ii) measuring only one aspect of music and treating it as a measure of a general musical capacity; iii) validating tests on very small groups; iv) lack of an adequate standardization of the test scores; v) application to a narrow age range, or difficulty in re-testing procedures; vi) lack of any attempt to correlate with teachers’ ranking; vii) neglecting the effect of musical training on the test scores. The author intended to conceive a test which would have compensated for all the above-mentioned weaknesses. According to Wing, the ultimate version of its test satisfy the criteria a scientific psychological test of music aptitude should: i) being acceptable to musicians; ii) not being influenced by training; iii) allowing the assessment of a wide range of different capabilities; iv) providing information on several relevant aspects of musical talent; v) being statistically reliable; vi) providing a standardized score; vii) requiring short times for the administration; viii) correlating well with scores provided by music teachers; ix) being of practical use in musical education; x) being easy to administer even with younger children. Wing has standardized the scores for the English population of different age cohorts, calculating on this basis a musical age and a musical quotient. His test is split into two subtests, the first one measuring perceptive aspects (ability subtests), and the second one measuring more cognitive components (appreciation subtests). Two terms which are central in Wing’s view of musical talent are musical ability and musical appreciation. Although strictly speaking the first refers to the ability to play an instrument, in a wider sense it includes the speed in learning to play, the ability to perform an aural test, and the ability to carry out musical activities such as composing. On the other hand, musical appreciation (which is distinguished from musical ability both by musicians and psychologists), is the power to recognize and evaluate artistic merit in music, and involves the deliberate aesthetic judgments of music as it actually exists in compositions, rather than ability to solve problems connected with the elementary materials of which music is composed. However, the author claims that music ability and appreciation should be connected in some way. Wing regards his measurement of appreciation as a revolutionary innovation, since previous tests did not deal with the essential aesthetic element involved in music, but were al-

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most exclusively concerned with the simpler perceptual processes or with the knowledge of musical technicalities. For Wing, nature is far more important than nurture, and he offers the following support for his stand: i) 11 year olds who score in the lowest quartile on his test take music lessons as often as those in the highest quartile; ii) test scores may continue to climb for some time after music lessons are over; iii) Wing scores of children, tested again after 5 years, correlate about 0.9 whether or not the subjects have had music lessons in the meantime; iv) high testing children do as well on unfamiliar music test items as on the more familiar; v) having two musical parents is associated with higher test scores than having only one such parent. In comparison with previous tests, Wing’s test is characterized by the employment of original material, higher reliability and validity, and an easier and more uniform administration. The subtests are designed in such a way that they require no special knowledge of musical technicalities, and within each, difficulty is graded so that the easiest items are suitable for children, while the hardest ones may be used to test the capacities of professional musicians. The items are made up of quite short melodic extracts, usually consisting of eight bars only, with each subtest containing 20 items as a rule. The whole set takes about one hour to be administered. In the last version (Wing 1970), there are seven subtests which involve the following tasks: i) chord analysis, i.e. detecting the number of notes played in a single chord (sometimes made up of just one note); ii) pitch change, i.e. detecting an alteration of a single note in a repeated chord; iii) memory, i.e. detecting an alteration of a note in a short melody; iv) rhythmic accent, i.e. choosing the better rhythmic accent in two performances; v) harmony, i.e. judging the more appropriate of two harmonizations; vi) intensity, i.e. judging the more appropriate mode of varying loudness (crescendo, decrescendo, etc.) in two performances of the same melody; vii) phrasing, i.e. judging the more appropriate phrasing (grouping of notes by pauses, legato and staccato playing, etc.) in two performances. Wing claims that it is important to assess not only the individual’s general capacity for musical appreciation, but also the particular type of musical appreciation in which one is weak or strong. Wing (1941) performed a factor analysis on a large dataset collected with his test, in order to characterize the dimensions underlying the various subtests. Results have identified three factors. The first factor could be treated as measuring the same group of mental processes that Wing dubs general musical ability. The second factor was found to divide the seven subtests into two classes, the first including those in which the

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essential task of the listener is to judge the more appropriate musical arrangement (e.g. appreciation), the second comprising those in which the task is merely to perceive a change (e.g. ear acuity). According to Wing, this factor resembles the finding of similar bipolar factors in other tests of artistic and intellectual abilities, for example the opposition between the synthetic activity described as “intuition” (in which we implicitly comprehend the essential meaning or character of a whole), and the analytic activity which essentially consists in explicitly analyzing the whole into its component parts and the relations between them. The third factor Wing extracted showed saturations with the two subtests of harmony and chord analysis. These are the only ones which essentially depend on listening to notes sounded simultaneously, whereas the others deal mainly with the melodic or rhythmic contour of the music played. Thus, according to Wing, this factor distinguishes those persons who have a better appreciation for harmony than for melody or rhythm. Finally, Wing reports that rhythm seems to have a comparatively weak association with the general musical ability, this way anticipating what more recent research has firmly demonstrated (Peretz & Coltheart 2003). He claims that of all musical capacities, the ability to recognize rhythm is probably the most elementary, in fact, it develops early, is the most widely diffused, and may exist in almost complete independence of any deeper appreciation of higher developments of musical art. 2.3. Gordon’s measures of music audiation As from the 1960s, Gordon has devised a series of musicality tests for various purposes, which have become very popular in the literature for several reasons: i) they can be used with subjects belonging to various age cohorts; ii) they can be used with subjects of different levels of expertise; iii) they measure different aspects of musicality, such as pitch ability, rhythmic ability, performance and expression preferences, ability to improvise, ability to score reading, etc; iv) they have been re-mastered following the digital era and recorded on CD. Gordon stresses the distinction between aptitude and achievement. He defines music aptitude as “the potential to learn or achieve in music” (an inner possibility), whereas music achievement represents “what somebody has already learned in music” (an outer reality). According to the author, those students who show a high level of music achievement, must also have a high level of music aptitude, whereas vice-versa is not necessarily true, as revealed by their scoring on a music aptitude test. In fact, stu-

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dents with low music aptitude who receive proper instruction may achieve more success than students with average music aptitude who receive improper instruction. Another important distinction, is that between a developmental stage and a stabilized stage within music aptitude. According to Gordon, music aptitude is basically innate, but not inherited. Thus, heredity influences music aptitude, but it does not entirely determine it. In fact, although innate, it also depends on a rich music environment to come to fruition. Hence, music aptitude becomes a product of an innate potential plus some early environmental musical influences, remaining lacking in the case of an inappropriate environment. In Gordon’s view, music aptitude is therefore a product of both nature and nurture. Gordon calls developmental music aptitude stage the period from birth to approximately age nine, a period in which according to him the environment would have a pronounced effect on music aptitude. During those years, a child’s music aptitude level would constantly fluctuate, and the potential may go up or down, according to the modulation of the environment. However, the effect of the environment would start to decrease shortly after birth and keep on diminishing with age, until about age nine music aptitude would stabilize and remain in what he calls stabilized music aptitude stage throughout adulthood. The author claims that it is very important that children receive the highest quality of both informal music guidance and formal music instruction during the developmental music aptitude stage, because this would increase their immediate level of achievement, their overall level of music aptitude, and their life-time potential for music achievement. The younger the children, the better they may benefit from a high-quality music environment. On the contrary, inappropriate or lacking instructions or no exposure to music whatsoever would drastically reduce a child’s developmental music aptitude. However, although early environmental influences promote music aptitude, in Gordon’s view one’s music aptitude cannot reach a higher level than that with which one is born, and no one would be able to reach a level in music achievement higher than that at which his aptitude has stabilized. Gordon considers unlikely the existence of completely separate aptitudes for composition, improvisation, instrument and vocal performance, rather, he suggests there would be different personality traits and psychomotor abilities, as well as separate sub-components of music aptitude, including preference and non-preference. According to him, aptitude would be unique but not unitary, and best represented by the inter-

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action of several human attributes. Nonetheless, it would have very little or even no relation to any other human trait, comprising race, religion, nationality or sex, and it would be also unrelated to the instrument one plays. It would be multidimensional, including a tonal aptitude (related to melody and harmony), a rhythm aptitude (related to tempo and meter), and expressive (related to phrasing, balance, style), improvisatory and creative aptitudes. Moreover, scores on both developmental and stabilized music aptitude tests would be normally distributed. To better describe musical aptitude, Gordon coins the term audiation, defining it as the capacity to assimilate and comprehend in our mind music for which the sound is not physically present (delayed musical events). On the contrary, aural perception occurs when we hear sounds in the very moment they are being produced (immediate sound events). Obviously, we are able to audiate actual sounds only after we have aurally perceived them. Gordon claims that, although audiation would be fundamental to both aptitude and achievement, it would work differently in each. In fact, while audiation potential cannot be taught, “how to audiate” could, i.e. how to use one’s intrinsic audiation (aptitude) to maximize one’s own acquired music achievement (as influenced by the environment). From Gordon’s perspective, sound becomes music only through audiation, when we translate it in our mind and give it a meaning, although such meaning would differ on different occasions, as well as from one person to the other. According to him, we audiate when listening to, recalling, performing, interpreting, creating, improvising, reading, or writing music. Gordon makes a comparison between music and speech, claiming that in the same way as speech communicates the meanings we have in mind, music performance communicates audiation (that is, the meaning of music). In fact, while listening to speech, we give meaning to what is said by connecting it with what we have heard on other occasions, and we create expectancies of what we will hear next, on the bases of our experience and understanding. Similarly, while listening to music, we give meaning to what we hear by connecting it with what we have heard on other occasions, and we create expectancies of what we will hear next, on the bases of our music achievement. Audiating is therefore the process of summarizing and generalizing from the specific music patterns we hear as a way to anticipate or predict what will follow. However, audiation is different from both imitation and memorization. We are able to store specific material in our memory without understanding it, but then we quickly forget it, and music makes no exception. Audiation leads to understanding, whereas imitation and memorization – when separated from audiation –

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lead at best to emotional reaction. In the same way, without audiation a performer can neither improvise nor create. Gordon identifies seven types of audiation, which serve as readiness for others, but are not hierarchically organized, and describes six stages of audiation, which conversely are hierarchical and cumulative, each of which establishing the basis for – and combining with – the next one. Gordon has devised several tests, which can be divided into two groups with different features in accordance with the music aptitude stage they are designed for. The developmental music aptitude tests employ either tonal or rhythmic patterns, but not melodic patterns which combine both aspects. They use “same/different” or “same/not same” responses, and each question is identified by a simple picture of a familiar object. Developmental tests are audie (1989b), for children aged three to four, PMMA (Primary Measures of Music Audiation, 1979), for children in grades from kindergarten through three, and IMMA (Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation, 1982), an advanced version of PMMA designed for children aged six to eleven with a higher music aptitude. The patterns are always performed on electronic instruments, because according to the author, students in the developmental music aptitude stage are more interested in how music is constructed, rather than in its expressive components. Vice versa, the stabilized music aptitude tests (i.e. MAP and AMMA ), employ music excerpts composed on purpose, performed with actual music instruments. They employ “same/different”, “like/different”, and “yes/no” responses, because options like high/low, up/down, short/long risk to transform a music aptitude into a music achievement test. Moreover, they also contain so-called “preference measures”, and each question is identified by a progressive number. AMMA (Advanced Measures of Music Audiation, 1989a) is a test designed for high school students and college/university music and nonmusic majors. It is made up of 30 items, each of which consists of a short musical statement followed after four seconds by a short musical answer with the same number of notes. The subject is asked to decide whether they are the same or different. When the answer is different from the statement, the subject is asked to decide whether the difference is a tonal or rhythm change. Within a certain item there may be either one or more tonal changes, or one or more rhythmic changes, but not both, and the difference between the statement and the answer may occur at the beginning, in the middle, and/or at the end of the item. All items are programmed on a computer and performed on an electronic instrument. AMMA is also the test we chose in our current experiments.

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MAP (Musical Aptitude Profile, 1965) is an eclectic battery designed to measure seven separate dimensions for students in grades four through twelve. It consists of three main sections: tonal imagery (comprising a melody and a harmony non-preference subtests); rhythm imagery (including a tempo and a meter non-preference subtests); and musical sensitivity (including three preference subtests: phrasing, balance, and style). The non-preference subtests work in a similar way to those of AMMA, conversely, in the preference subtests, the subject listens to two versions of a melody, and he is asked to decide which of the two “sounds better”. In phrasing the two versions are performed with different musical expression; in balance they begin in the same way, but end in a different way; and in style the two versions are performed at different tempos. Gordon has also devised also other tests, to determine whether a student has the necessary readiness and ability to improvise (HIRR and RIRR ), to help students to choose an appropriate musical instrument (ITPT), and to measure tonal, rhythm and notational audiation (ITML).

3.

Musicality meets language talent

3.1. A common ground for music and language Many authors claim that, beyond their respective differences, language and music share some common characteristics. Both of them are auditory phenomena that follow a time line (temporal aspect). Moreover, rhythm and melody in music can be compared to stress and intonation in language (Arleo 2000). Both of them are human universals consisting of perceptually discrete elements organized into hierarchically structured sequences, be it from the individual note to the larger constituent of a musical composition, or from phonemes to the discourse units (Sloboda 1985; Patel 2003). Both of them share a series of fundamental characteristics, such as the processing of sounds, the conveyance of messages, the learning by exposure, the sharing of intrinsic features like pitch, volume, prominence, stress, tone, rhythm, and pauses (Fonseca Mora 2000). It has also been suggested that, in the same way in which rhythmic structures in the prosody influence the meaning of segments in English, rhythmic structure or patterns of accent strength affect the relative importance with which musical events are interpreted (Palmer & Kelly 1992). Infantdirected speech is music-like in a number of aspects (e.g., regular rhythms, slow tempo, pitch contours expanded and repeated with altered

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lexical or segmental content and varying tempo, extended vowels) and has a distinct suprasegmental structure (Trehub & Trainor 1993). Moreover, musical abilities probably play an important role in the acquisition and the processing of language. In fact, infants acquire much information about word and phrase boundaries (and possibly even about word meaning), through different types of prosodic (thus musical) cues of language, such as speech melody, metre, rhythm and timbre (Jusczyk 1999). Finally, tonal languages rely on the decoding of pitch relations between phonemes, and non-tonal languages also require an accurate analysis of speech prosody to decode structure and meaning of speech (Koelsch & Siebel 2005). 3.2. Music training and language acquisition We have already seen that musical aptitude is different from musical ability, in that the latter is affected by training. Before treating the relationships between musical aptitude and language acquisition, it is worth to take a look to those studies considering the relationship between music training and language acquisition. The existence of a positive influence of music training on language acquisition in children and adolescents has been consistently reported. One study showed that students who receive a musical training are more successful in discriminating and performing French pronunciation than those who do not (Harrison 1979). Another reported that Asian students of English distinguished between minimal pairs more effectively when the sounds were presented contextually in songs and chants rather than when they were presented in word lists (Karimer 1984). It was also found that listening to music in a second language class improved auditory discrimination relevant to learning proficiency (Pinel 1990; Tomatis 1991). Moreover, it was demonstrated that a group receiving music lessons performed significantly better in both oral grammar and reading comprehension of French (Lowe 1998). On the other hand, Deutsch (1991) has demonstrated that the perception of pitches is influenced by the mother language spoken by the listener. In a study by Spychiger (1993), primary school children received extra music lessons in place of other school subjects over the course of three years, and results showed that these children performed better than their peers in language and reading skills. Douglas and Willatts (1994) carried out a study in which children with reading difficulties were given a music training, whilst a control group undertook exercises in non-musical ac-

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tivities. Significantly, reading scores for the music group increased, whereas scores for the control group did not. Similarly, Costa-Giomi (1999) demonstrated that two years of piano instruction significantly improved verbal abilities of ten to eleven year olds compared with controls. Finally, it was found that a musical training at a young age caused a significant improvement in short-term verbal memory in adulthood (Chan et al. 1998). On the other hand, Stokes (2001) found no correlation between music training and L2 acquisition in adult learners. Musical ability can predict aspects of first-language (L1) verbal ability, such as reading ability in children (Atterbury 1985; Anvari et al. 2002). Jakobson et al. (2003) reported enhanced verbal memory performance in musicians. Milovanov et al. (2007) have studied the phonemic processing skills of musicians and non-musicians with the dichotic listening task3 in children and adults with varying degrees of musical aptitude (as assessed by Seashore’s test). Subjects were given phonetically meaningful – but semantically irrelevant – consonant/vowel syllables pairs presented to both ears, always two different pairs at a time. Results showed superior left ear monitoring skills among the adults who practiced music regularly, indicating altered hemispheric functioning, whereas other musically talented subjects did not have the ability to control left ear functioning in an equal manner, that is, the performance of musical children and their non-musical controls in the left ear condition did not differ. Thus, regular music practice may have a modulating effect on the brain’s linguistic organization. An improving effect of musical practice on pitch processing in speech has been recently also demonstrated with the ERPs technique (Schön et al. 2004; Besson et al. 2007), suggesting that a set of common processes may be responsible for pitch processing in both music and in speech. A very recent study (Pastuszek-Lipinska 2008) has investigated whether music training and education influence the perception and pro-

3. The Dichotic Listening Task is a technique devised to investigate the functional hemispheric specialization. It exploits the physiology of the auditory ascending paths, so that two thirds of the fibers in the auditory nerves go to the contralateral hemisphere, whereas one third of the fibers remains ipsilateral. When two different stimuli (e.g. two different words, or two different pitches) are presented simultaneously at the two ears, the subject typically reports the stimulus for which the hemisphere is specialized, i.e. the left hemisphere (right ear) for verbal material, and the right hemisphere (left ear) for musical material.

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duction of L2 sounds. Subjects were Polish native speakers either musicians or non-musicians, who were asked to reproduce as accurately as they could sentences in the following foreign languages: English, Belgian Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish and Japanese. Results revealed that musicians outperformed non-musicians, in that the former produced more sentences, encountered fewer difficulties with the task, and were rated as more fluent with respect to the latter, demonstrating that music education exerted a measurable impact on speech perception and production. The author concluded that since the influence of musical expertise extends to speech processing, music education should be considered an enabling factor in the successful acquisition of L2. On which basis would a musical training be able to improve language processing? Some explanations have been given, mainly based on the role musical (specifically rhythmic) processing would play in the development of short-term verbal memory (Karimer 1984; Chan et al. 1998) and temporal processing ability, i.e. the fine discriminations between rapidly changing acoustic events (Jakobson et al. 2003), and on the basis of a common neural substrate between musical rhythm processing and language reading (Douglas & Willatts 1994). Furthermore, music has been employed as an alternative treatment for language impairments. For example, Benson et al. (1994) have used a music-based therapy (Melodic Intonation Therapy) in aphasic patients with severe left-hemisphere brain damages. In this therapy, word sequences are incorporated into a song, and after some time the melody is removed until the patient can speak without singing. Such therapy exploits the intonation and singing abilities preserved in the right hemisphere, which memorizes the phrases through music. Music therapy has also been employed to help children with speech and language impairment (SLI), who may have sufficient speech sounds and vocabulary, but may stop expressing themselves fully through speech. Sutton (1995) observed an interesting parallel between SLI children’s progress in music and their progress in language: as they began to build music into phrases and structures, they also began to express themselves with their voices and construct simple sentences. 3.3. Music aptitude and language acquisition There is evidence of a relationship between music skills and the acquisition of the mother tongue (L1). By investigating the relationship between reading and auditory abilities in English native speakers, Ewers (1950)

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found significant correlations between reading scores and musical skills such as pitch discrimination, loudness, musical rhythm and tonal memory. In another study (Wheeler & Wheeler 1954), the Seashore pitch subtest was found to correlate with an auditory discrimination test for English sounds, and with a test of reading skills, but not with general intelligence. Holmes (1954) also reported that various auditory abilities play an important role in L1 spelling ability both in high school students (i.e. tonal movement, pitch, tonal memory, intensity, rhythm and melodic taste) and college students (i.e. tonal memory and pitch), irrespective of intelligence. More recently, Douglas and Willatts (1994) found an association between rhythmic ability and reading, rhythmic ability and spelling, but not between pitch discrimination ability and reading. On the other hand, there is vast evidence of a significant relationship between music skills and second language (L2) acquisition. Dexter and Omwake (1934) investigated the relationship between the ability to discriminate pitches (Seashore’s pitch subtest) and pronunciation ability in French, and found that pitch correlated significantly with accent ratings. Another study (Eterno 1961) reported that both musical aptitude and musical training were capable of predicting foreign language pronunciation success. A study by Pimsleur et al. (1962) found that pitch and timbre discrimination were consistently related to the auditory comprehension of French. Interestingly, Leutenegger et al. (1965) investigated both the effects of musical aptitude on language learning ability (in French and Spanish), and the effects of language learning on musical aptitude, also controlling for sex and intelligence. Although results on the whole did not show strong relationships between the Seashore subtests and foreign language achievement, in the female group the tonal memory scores significantly predicted the achievement scores in French. By using the Seashore test and some pronunciation tests, Arellano & Draper (1972) found a strong correlation between timbre and intonation, timbre and phones, rhythm and intonation, rhythm and phones, and tonal memory and phones, demonstrating the existence of a relationship between perceptual musical skills and productive phonetic aspects. Moreover, Fish (1984) found a strong correlation between pitch discrimination and sound discrimination, as well as between sound discrimination and the playing of a musical instrument. However, no correlations between pitch discrimination ability and pronunciation ability of German (L2) phonemes, pronunciation ability of Germans phonemes and musical background, and sound discrimination ability and pronunciation ability of German phonemes were found. Therefore, music was re-

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lated to language perception, but had little influence on language production. Similarly, by using the Seashore test and some pronunciation production measures Brutten et al. (1985) found no significant correlations. By examining the association between musical and language aptitude, Stevenson (1999) found a correlation between rhythmic ability and the ability to reproduce words in a foreign language, as well as between the ability to sing back melodies and the ability to reproduce foreign language words. Tucker (2000) examined foreign language aptitude in English and Japanese native speakers by using the MLAT (and its Japanese translation) and self-assessments of foreign language proficiency, and Seashore’s test. Results showed significant correlations between the MLAT and self-assessments and the tonal memory subtest, as well as between the MLAT and the rhythm subtest. Moreover, Anvari et al. (2002) found significant correlations between musical aptitude and both phonological awareness and reading development. Morgan (2003) has investigated the relationship between both receptive and productive aspects of music (Gordon’s IMMA and vocal notes reproduction), and those of French as L2 (vowel discrimination and accent production). Her results showed correlations between perception of rhythm and speech perception, perception of rhythm and accent production, music production and speech perception, and between music production and accent production, thus demonstrating crossed influences within the same experimental design. Gilleece (2006) has investigated the relationship between musical and foreign language aptitude in English native speakers, also controlling for the role played by general intelligence. She also assessed both receptive and productive aspects, the former by means of Bentley’s test for music, and a test based on MLAT plus a discrimination task of Chinese and Czech words for language; the latter by means of imitation of short rhythm patterns for music, and imitation of Korean words and Spanish sentences for language. Results showed a significant correlation between receptive musical and language aptitudes, as well as a significant correlation between productive skills in language and music, both irrespective of general intelligence. Slevc and Myiake (2006) have investigated the relationship between musical aptitude (as assessed by Wing’s test) and L2 proficiency (i.e., receptive and productive phonology, syntax and lexical knowledge) in adult Japanese native speakers who were learning English as L2, while controlling for age of L2 immersion, patterns of language use and exposure, and phonological short-term memory. Their results showed that

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musical aptitude predicted both receptive and productive L2 phonetical ability, but not syntax and lexical knowledge, thus demonstrating that musical skills may facilitate the acquisition of L2 sounds. Finally, Milovanov et al. (2008) examined the relationship between musical aptitude (as measured by Seashore’s test) and L2 pronunciation skills (word discrimination and repetition), comparing children with superior performance in foreign language production with children with less-advanced production skills. Sound processing accuracy was examined by means of Event-Related Potential4 (ERP) recordings and behavioral measures. Results showed that children with good linguistic skills had better musical skills than children with less accurate linguistic skills. Moreover, the ERP data showed that children with good linguistic skills have more pronounced sound-change evoked activation with the music stimuli than children with less accurate linguistic skills. The authors conclude that musical and linguistic skills could partly be based on shared neural mechanisms. 3.4. Empirical evidence from our study on musicality and phonetic ability In our current research project we pursued the question whether musicality as a whole, as well as various more detailed musicality measures, correlate with linguistic abilities, especially talent for L2 pronunciation. For this aim we employed various measures for musicality: 1) Gordon’s AMMA (extensively reviewed in section 2.3.), composed of two subscales: i) a scale for rhythm discrimination ability; and ii) a scale for pitch discrimination ability; which results in a total score of musicality. 2) An additional introspective questionnaire eliciting self reported abilities in the domain of music: i) singing capacity (performance) and the liking for singing; ii) dancing ability (performance) and the liking for dancing; and iii) instrument playing (the number of instruments

4. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) are a neurophysiologic technique consisting in the systematic averaging of many Electroencephalografic (EEG) samples following the presentation of a certain stimulus. By averaging many samples, the noise in the evoked signal is reduced, while the commonalities are enhanced. This results in a graph representing the electrical activity of a given neural pool as a function of time (expressed in milliseconds). Each electrical (positive or negative) peak appearing in the graph is then identified as a “component” associated with a specific stage of the cognitive processing of the stimulus.

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played, the performance therein, and the degree of enjoyment connected to the playing of an instrument). The scale for the self scoring ranged from 1 point (minimum) to 5 points (maximum). We correlated these scores revealing musicality to the second language related tests, which comprised: 1) an L2 pronunciation talent score (see chapter 2); 2) an L2 pronunciation performance/proficiency score (see chapter 2); 3) the MLAT (Modern Language Aptitude Test by Carroll & Sapon), short form, (described in more detail in chapter 2) with three subtests: 3a) MLAT3 (phonetic coding ability); 3b) MLAT4 (grammatical sensitivity); 3c) MLAT5 (vocabulary learning); 3d) MLAT total score subsuming the three subparts; 4) a subtest of the TOEFL battery for English grammar (see chapter 2)

Results and discussion Results are reported for a cohort of 66 individuals (33 males, age range 20–40 years, males: mean age 26.49 years +/– 5.36; females: mean age 25.31 years +/– 4.47) taking part in the study. Correlation coefficient (r) was computed after Pearson, 2-tailed, with a level of probability of P < .05 (*) and P < .01 (**). Gender differences were not detected, with the exception of the liking for dancing (t-test for independent samples yielded highly sig. difference, P = .001**, higher scores for females) and the performance or capacity to dance (with P = .033*, higher scores for females). However, as we will see later, dancing was not amongst the musical abilities to predict any of the language related skills. First of all, a trivial result emerged. All musicality tests were highly correlated amongst each other and likewise, all linguistic measures were highly correlated amongst each other with correlation coefficients ranging from .3 to .9, P < .01**. This underlines the validity of our tests and measures taken. Our aim was to see how the linguistic measures for the various L2 abilities (aptitude and performance) interact with the musicality measures. Results are summarized in Fig.1 (see Figure Nardo & Reiterer 1 in the Colour figure section).

Colour figure section

Nardo and Reiterer Figure 1.

Table 1. – Correlations between musicality measures and language measures (N = 66)

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Most importantly, the two L2 aptitude measures which correlated in a significant way with all the employed musicality scores were: our own pronunciation talent score and MLAT4 score (grammatical sensitivity). Within the musicality measures, the pronunciation talent score correlated most highly with both the liking for singing and the self reported singing capacity (r = .4, P = .000**, see figure 1) and secondly with Gordon’s rhythm score (r = .24, P = .01*). The aptitude test for grammatical sensitivity (MLAT4) also yielded its strongest and highest correlation with the musicality measures of singing (r = .31, P = .001**), followed by the liking for playing an instrument (r = .26, P = .005**). Further language ability measures which correlated with the scores measured by Gordon’s AMMA (pitch and rhythm) and the questions about singing (but not with playing or liking instruments) were: the actual pronunciation performance, MLAT3 (perceptive phonetic coding ability) as well as MLAT total score and the TOEFL grammar test. (For details see Fig. 1.) The only test from the linguistic measures with almost no significant correlations (except for a correlation at the lower end for the rhythm perception – r = .19, P = .034*) was the MLAT5, the vocabulary learning subtest of the aptitude battery. In this test the task was to quickly learn new unknown L2 vocabulary, which is a skill that belongs to the lexicosemantic domain and draws on the capacity for associative memory. In conclusion, we can say that the strongest correlations for musicality as measured by almost all our subtests (except for dancing ability) were found in productive phonetic talent (as measured by our pronunciation talent score) as well as the aptitude for grammatical sensitivity. Among the musicality measures, the score which correlated in a significant way with all the language measures, was the rhythm subscore, closely followed by the score for pitch discrimination and then by the self evaluated singing scores (liking singing and singing capacity). The score complex instrument playing (number of instruments played and self reported ability and liking for this instrument) provided fewer interactions with the linguistic measures, except for MLAT4 and the pronunciation talent score (see Fig. 1). Within the last mentioned interactions, the strongest correlation was found between aptitude for grammatical sensitivity and the degree of enjoyment with which one plays an instrument (liking to play the instrument; r = .26**, P = .005). Furthermore, our instrument measures did not result in any significant correlations to the pure performance score of pronunciation, the phonetic coding ability (a perceptive aptitude

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measured by the MLAT3), vocabulary learning (MLAT5) and the TOEFL test. No correlations were found between the language measures and self reported dancing score (capacity and liking for dancing). In our opinion, this result is not unexpected, since liking to dance was not hypothesized to be related to pronunciation ability in L2, and largely depends on social environment and conventions. Liking for dancing was also the only measure that yielded highly significant differences between the sexes. In short, the conclusions we can draw from this ongoing research are that musicality, ideally in the form of a well developed rhythm perception ability together with a good pitch perception ability and an enhanced ability and liking for singing, are the best ingredients for achieving talent and expertise in foreign language pronunciation from the experimental point of view based on our current studies.

4.

Neuroscientific evidence

4.1. Overview In the previous sections, we have reviewed empirical contributions which demonstrate the existence of a relationship between language and music processing. There is evidence that musical training and expertise influence language processing and that certain musical abilities (above all rhythm and pitch discrimination) are associated to a certain degree with language abilities, especially in the phonetic/phonological domain. In the last decade, the issue of a common neural substrate of language and music has become central. The recent advancements in neuroimaging techniques (PET, fMRI, MEG) have allowed scientists to investigate both the neural structures and the functioning underlying higher-order cognitive processes in a new way. There is an increasing number of studies which give empirical support to the hypothesis that language and music are processed, at least partially, in the same brain structures. The first studies that investigated the neural substrates of music processing on the basis of neuropsychological evidence (Milner 1962; Kimura 1964), pointed at a difference in the hemispheric lateralization, suggesting that language processing was lateralized to the left, whereas music processing was processed on the right side. However influential, such findings have been proved wrong by subsequent studies. First, it was found that the lateralization of music processing was affected by the level

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of expertise (Bever & Chiarello 1974), which is able to modify the networks on the basis of neural plasticity (for expertise and plasticity in L2, see also chapter by S Reiterer). Second, it was claimed that music (like language) is no single entity, but should be decomposed into different components (or levels of processing) which the literature has shown to be processed in different brain structures (Besson & Schön 2001). Modern concepts emphasize the modular5 organization of music cognition, that different aspects of music are processed in different (although partly overlapping) neuronal networks of both hemispheres (Altenmüller 2001). In an influential paper, Patel and Peretz (1997) have focused on the music-language relation, criticizing the literature reporting cases of amusia6 without aphasia (and vice versa) as evidence of no cognitive overlap between music and language. In fact, according to them, such an argument does not take into consideration the subcomponents of music and language. Moreover, cases of aphasia without amusia are generally found in exceptional individuals such as conductors and composers. Finally, aphasia does not include all disorders of language. Patel and Peretz suggest that music–like–language is a confluence of interacting cognitive processes rather than an indivisible whole, and report various studies investigating different aspects of musical structure and their relationship to linguistic structures (Patel & Peretz 1997). Aspects under consideration include melody (melodic contour7, pitch, and tonality8) rhythm (tempo9,

5. Modularity of mind is a theory of mental architectures proposed in 1983 by Jerry Fodor. According to him, some psychological mechanisms (typically perceptive and language systems) would be organized as mental modules, having at least more than one of the following characteristics: rapidity of operation, automaticity, domain-specificity, informationally encapsulation (that is independency from other modules and from the central processing), neural specificity and innateness. 6. Amusia refers to a disorder which consists in the inability to recognize musical pitches, melodies or rhythms or to reproduce them. Amusia can be congenital (if present at birth), or acquired, (i.e. following a brain damage). 7. Melodic contour is the general shape of a melodic line, that is its patterns of ups and downs in pitch directions over time, without regard to the exact pitch intervals, a very salient feature in melodic perception. 8. Tonality can be defined as a system of organizing pitch in which a single pitch (the tonic) is made central and serves as a reference point for the others. It is referred to as “the musical syntax” because it involves orderly structural relations embodied in the implicit knowledge of an experienced listener. 9. Tempo refers to the rate of auditory events in music.

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grouping10, and metre11) and song. Results suggest an association between performance on musical contour and linguistic intonation tasks, as well as common mechanisms between grouping in language and music. 4.2. Music and language processing meet in the brain Previous functional imaging studies have reported that musical tasks activate language areas and vice versa, suggesting that music and language share neural substrates (Gaab et al. 2003; Gaab & Schlaug 2003; Koelsch et al. 2003; Reiterer et al. 2005, 2008). The majority of studies investigating the common neural substrate of music and language processing have predominantly focused on syntax. However, in a study on basic acoustic processing (discriminating subtle differentiations in timbre) performed by our own research group (Reiterer et al. 2008), we found evidence that timbre or quality of tone presented in isolated synthesized tones (neither in the context of music, nor language) activated left Broca’s area. The notion of a musical syntax has been proposed (Swain 1997; Koelsch et al. 2004), but its rules are difficult to define concretely. Although music consists of discrete elements, its organization is largely relational, especially in Western culture. In fact, in the Western tonal system, the listener’s interpretation of a given note is substantially influenced by both the preceding and the simultaneous notes, and each note contributes to form the framework within which the subsequent notes will be interpreted (Limb 2006). This principle of contextual influence or “embeddedness” into a surrounding frame is similar to the theory of co-articulation in the field of phonetics (see chapter by H. Baumotte). This feature of Western music leads to the notion of musical key (i.e., the relational characteristic of musical pitches), which allows the transposition of a melody into different keys, where although the absolute frequencies of pitches are altered, the contour of the melody is preserved. Similar relational organizations are also valid for rhythmic and harmonic principles.

10. Grouping is the clustering of adjacent elements into lager units (phrases) while listening to music. 11. Metre is the periodic temporal-accentual scheme, or the number of pulses between the more or less regularly recurring accents. In music grouping boundaries are not predictable from the metrical scheme, that is, metre and grouping are separate though interacting aspects of rhythm (see Lerdahl & Jackendoff 1983).

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One of the most important consequences of such relational nature of music is the creation of strong expectations in the listener, based on the internalization of certain variables as a consequence of exposure and enculturation. This way, the vast majority of music listeners are accustomed to hear notes that fit the melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic contextual reference. In music, these expectancies are considered as a sort of vague but robust syntax (Limb 2006) and can be exploited by violating them in a controlled way in order to provoke cerebral responses capable of revealing what happens in the brain when musical “syntax” is violated. For instance, if the last note of a melody played within a single key is out of key, the listener immediately detects a syntactic aberration. This procedure has proven to be very effective also with non-musicians, who are very sensitive to this kind of violations (Koelsch & Friederici 2003). In language studies a similar paradigm would be semantic or syntactic mismatch studies, where anomalies in syntactic or semantic structure have to be detected. Patel (2003) has pointed out the contradictory findings of the research on the neural correlates of syntax in language and music. In fact, whilst neuropsychological evidence shows that linguistic and musical syntax can be dissociated (Peretz 1993; Peretz et al. 1994; Griffiths 1997; Ayotte et al. 2000, 2002), neuroimaging data support the idea of an overlap in the processing of syntactic relations in language and music (Patel et al. 1998; Maess et al. 2001; Tillman et al. 2003; Koelsch et al. 2002). According to the author, this fact can be accounted for by claiming that syntax in language and music share a common set of processes (instantiated in frontal brain areas) that operate on different structural representations (in posterior areas). Support to the idea of a common neural substrate for syntactical processing in music and language mainly rely on two kinds of finding, the evidence of a recruitment of the same neural structures (especially Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, and their homologues on the right side), and the evidence of similar brain wave responses. A study with musicians by Patel et al. (1998) compared ERPs elicited by syntactic structural incongruities in language and music. By employing the violation of principles of phrase structure and principles of harmony and key-relatedness, the authors constructed sequences where an element was either congruous, moderately incongruous, or highly incongruous with the preceding structural context. Results showed that both linguistic and musical incongruities elicited the same component (P600), previously considered to be language specific.

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Another study (Maess et al. 2001) investigated the relational (syntactical) properties of Western tonal music with MEG. In this study, nonmusicians were presented a series of key musical chord sequences that occasionally contained so-called Neapolitan or sixth chord (which contains two out-of-key notes while being both major and consonant in character), allowing the examination of responses to musical chords that vary according to the musical expectancies created by the preceding chords. Results showed the formation of an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) during the Neapolitan chord presentation, generated in left Broca’s area and its right homologue, well-known key regions for syntactic processing of language. An fMRI study (Levitin & Menon 2003) examined the brain responses of participants who listened to classical music and scrambled versions of that same music (the latter disrupting the musical structure while holding psychoacoustic features). Comparing music to its scrambled counterpart, the authors found an activation in the left inferior frontal cortex (Brodmann area 47), a region closely associated with the processing of linguistic structure in spoken and signed language, and its right hemisphere homologue, suggesting that this region may be responsible for processing fine structured stimuli that evolve over time, and are not merely linguistic. A series of studies have systematically employed the violation of expectations in chord sequences with various groups of subjects (male and female, children and adults, musicians and non-musicians). An fMRI study by Koelsch et al. (2002) revealed that unexpected chords activated Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, superior temporal sulcus, Heschl’s gyrus, planum polare and temporale, and anterior insula, structures previously thought to be domain-specific for language processing. In another study (Koelsch et al. 2003), where ERPs were recorded in 5- and 9-year-old children, it was found that the degree of inappropriateness of the chords modified brain responses according to music-theoretical principles in both age cohorts. Moreover, gender differences were found, resembling lateralization patterns typical of language processing (left predominant in boys, bilateral in girls). Finally, another fMRI study (Koelsch et al. 2005) confirmed and extended previous findings in three groups of subjects: 10-year-old children, adults non-musicians, and adult musicians. In adults, irregular chords activated structures mediating cognitive aspects of musical syntax processing, such as the inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, superior temporal gyrus and sulcus, and supramarginal gyrus. Whilst in the right hemisphere the activation pattern of children and

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adults was similar, on the left, adults showed larger activations in prefrontal and temporal areas. Moreover, in both adults and children, musical training correlated with stronger activations in the frontal operculum and superior temporal gyrus. In a further study by our own research group (Reiterer et al. 2005) on basic pitch and duration discrimination, we found that task difficulty and not the stimulus characteristics per se, was another modulating factor affecting hemispheric involvement within the classical auditory processing areas. We found more right hemispheric involvement for both, the pitch and the duration discrimination task, when the task was easier, i.e. the discrimination between two stimuli could be achieved easily. Speaking of semantics in the music domain seems strange, given that music is rather abstract and has little explicit reference to the external world. However, although still under debate, the question has been posed whether a musical phrase can convey meaning, and whether this can be proven. According to Koelsch (2005), music can transfer meaningful information and is an important means of communication. Theorists distinguish between four different aspects of musical meaning: i) emerging from common patterns or forms (e.g., musical sound patterns that resemble sounds or qualities of objects); ii) arising from a particular mood; iii) inferred by extramusical associations; and iv) stemming from combinations of formal structures that create tension (e.g., an unexpected chord) and resolution (Meyer 1956). The emergence of this latter kind requires an integration of both expected and unexpected events into a meaningful musical context. The processing of such musical integration seems to be reflected in a late negative component evoked by unexpected (irregular) chords, which is substantially similar to the N400 component elicited by the processing of semantic integration during the perception of language. The N400 amplitude correlates with the amount of semantic integration required by a word and, similarly, with the amount of harmonic integration required by a musical event (Koelsch et al. 2000). In an electrophysiological study with healthy subjects, Koelsch et al. (2004) examined whether the priming effect caused by presenting semantically related words in sequence (which evoke the N400 component) could also apply to music. Results showed that a semantic priming effect was also observed when target words (i.e., semantically unrelated to a preceding musical excerpt) followed musical excerpts. The N400 component did not differ between the language condition and the music condition with respect to amplitude, latency or scalp distribution, and the ef-

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fect was observed for both abstract and concrete words. Moreover, in both conditions the main sources of these effects were localized bilaterally in the posterior part of the medial temporal gyrus (BA 21/37), in proximity to the superior temporal sulcus, regions implicated in the processing of semantic information during language processing (Friederici et al. 2000; Friederici 2001, 2002; Baumgaertner et al. 2002). Such findings demonstrate that music can activate representations of meaningful concepts, and that the cognitive operations underlying meaning decoding can be identical in language and music processing. On the other hand, Besson and Schön (2003) have carried out an experiment which shows that lyrics and tunes seem to be processed in an independent way, giving support to a domain-specificity of semantic processing. Conceptually similar, research with fMRI by our own groups (Riecker et al. 2000) investigating overt singing and speaking found that singing is predominantly lateralized to the right and speaking to the left hemisphere. 4.3. The neural substrate of musicality Unfortunately, the neural correlates of musicality have been very poorly investigated to date. An interesting study (Norton et al. 2005) has compared children who were about to begin an instrumental training with controls who were not, in order to determine whether there are: i) a priori structural neural differences (i.e., innate markers of musical ability) between the groups; ii) differences in other cognitive skills between the groups; iii) correlations prior to music training between perceptual musical skills (as measured by Gordon’s PMMA) and other outcomes (cognitive, motor, or neural) possibly associated with music training. Results showed no pre-existing neural, cognitive, motor or musical differences between the groups, as well as no correlations between music perceptual skills and brain or cognitive measures. However, correlations were found between music perceptual skills and phonemic awareness, suggesting the existence of a common neural substrate for language and music in the phonetic domain. Recent findings suggest that Heschl’s gyrus12 could constitute a possible marker of musicality (as well as linguistic talent, see chapter by S Reiterer). Schneider et al. (2002) have conducted a magnetoencephalo12. Heschl’s gyrus is the primary auditory cortex in the human brain, located within the Sylvian scissure and corresponding to Brodmann area 41.

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graphic (MEG) and structural imaging study in which professional musicians, amateur, and non-musicians performed an auditory processing task. Professional musicians showed a significantly greater increase in MEG activity within primary auditory cortex compared to non-musicians, which in turn was found to correlate with increased volumetric measurements of gray matter within Heschl’s gyrus in musicians compared to non-musicians. Moreover, psychometric testing revealed a positive correlation between the size of Heschl’s gyrus and musical aptitude as assessed by Gordon’s AMMA. These results were confirmed in a subsequent study (Schneider et al. 2005), and although the question of causality could not be addressed, these findings suggest a fundamental link between musical exposure, musical aptitude, and the physiologic and anatomic development of Heschl’s gyrus.

5.

Conclusions

In this chapter we have examined the concept of musicality and reviewed the major experimental contributions concerning its relationship with language talent, ability and linguistic processing in general. We have started with definitions of musicality and related concepts in order to introduce and disclose the complexity of the topic. We have referred to musicality as a multi-faceted and fuzzy concept conveying the meaning of a collection of musical abilities which rely on both innate predispositions and experience. We have defined “talent” (or “aptitude”) as the innate component, and “musicality” (or “musical ability”) as a complex skill stemming from the interaction between innate and acquired factors. To date, the “nature vs. nurture” problem seems far from a solution, because both standpoints are supported by evidence. Clearly, both of them play an important role in the shaping of the actual musical abilities. However, we suggest that the debate and the efforts towards a precise determination of the relative contribution of nature and nurture could be misleading, and possibly out of reach. Thus, future research could start from the assumption of the necessity of both factors, and focus more on their interrelation rather than on their relative pre-eminence. We have seen that both theories and evidence support the idea of musicality as something different from general intelligence. However, some authors (i.e., Wing, Gardner, Reimer) use the term “musical intelligence” to refer to the cognitive component implied in musical abilities. Yet such musical intelligence is by no means meant as something related to the

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logical-abstract ability which we normally associate with general intelligence, but rather with an independent skill. On the basis of the reviewed literature and our own current research, we can assert that, far from being a unitary entity, musical ability is made up of several sub-components which align themselves along a continuum ranging from most basic psychophysical skills (i.e. pitch discrimination, rhythm perception, timbre and intensity sensitivity, etc.), to the highest cognitive abilities (tonal representation, aesthetic appreciation, ability to create or improvise, etc.), also including motor skills (from tempo-tapping to accurate performance and improvisation). These sub-components are probably not isolated, but interact with each other, as well as with abilities in other domains (i.e. sub-components of language processing like phonetic perception and production, memory, imagery, creativity, etc.). We suggest that future research about musicality and language processing should take into account the complexity of these phenomena and would benefit from considering their sub-components in major details. As regards the tests of musical aptitude, we have reviewed the most popular ones. To date, Seashore’s test has been heavily criticized for its atomistic and psychophysical approach. However it is still employed in those studies aimed at investigating the basic levels of musical talent. On the other hand, Wing’s and Gordon’s tests are more “cognitive”, and several versions of the latter make it particularly suitable for research with different age and expertise cohorts. Our own research as well as the literature reviewed consistently show that language and music are not independent phenomena, but perhaps two sides of one coin with a lot of similarities, yet not being exactly the same. We have seen that music practice improves language processing, and that some aspects of music and language processing are correlated, especially rhythmic processing and phonetic aspects. In our own research we found that there are strong links between rhythm and pitch perception and singing capacity on the one hand, and pronunciation talent, pronunciation performance/proficiency, phonetic encoding ability and even grammatical sensitivity and proficiency on the other. Moreover, when considering the neural substrates, it clearly emerges that the syntactic, semantic and phonetic aspect of both linguistic and musical processing share the same networks in a substantial way. This evidence contrasts the idea of a strict domain-specificity and suggests that language and music share some common cognitive operations which are involved in both processes. Conversely, the investigation of the neural correlates of musical talent has just begun, and will certainly in-

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crease in next years, hopefully taking into account the complexity of musicality. Finally, on the basis of the present work, the important arising question is “what is the exact relationship between musical skills, language skills, and cognitive processes?” Future research is still needed to investigate the nature of this relationship, in order to determine which cognitive operations underlie the various musical and language abilities, to bring forth the commonalities between both. This would advance our understanding of how the single components could best be exploited to improve one another.

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Webster, P. R. 1983 Measures of creative thinking in music. Unpublished manuscript, Northwestern University School of Music, Evanston, IL. Webster, P. R. 1988 New perspectives on music aptitude and achievement. Psychomusicology, 7: 177–194. Wheeler, L. R., & Wheeler, V. D. 1954 A study of the relationship of auditory discrimination to silent reading abilities. Journal of Educational Research, 48: 103–113. Wing, H. D. 1941 A factorial study of musical tests. British Journal of Psychology., XXXI: 341–355. Wing, H. D. 1970 Tests of Musical Ability and Appreciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.